Selected work
Nationwide Chalets had moved away from selling a small number of standard mobile home models.
The problem was the website still made the business look like that was what they did.
The new offer was much more flexible.
Rather than choosing Model A or Model B, customers could talk through what they needed and have something built around them.
That could mean a different layout, different finishes, more space in certain areas or something designed around how the chalet was actually going to be used.
So the website needed to change with the business.
It also needed to feel more credible.
The old caravan-style look wasn’t really helping. If you’re asking somebody to spend serious money on a bespoke build, the website needs to feel like it belongs to the same level of product.
The biggest change was moving the whole website away from the idea of standard models.
Instead of leading with products, the new site leads with the fact that the chalets are bespoke.
I reworked the structure around that and gave the business clearer places to talk about the homes, the process, previous work and the questions people usually have before getting in touch.
The design went much cleaner too.
Lots of white space, stronger typography, restrained use of the existing brand colours and much more emphasis on the photography.
The logo already had quite a few colours going on, so I didn’t want the rest of the website joining in.
The blue became the main accent and the rest of the interface stayed pretty neutral.
The aim was to make the business feel more like a bespoke home builder and less like somewhere you’d scroll through a list of caravans.
Real photography was a big part of that.
If you’re selling something people are going to live in, nice icons and stock photos aren’t doing much of the heavy lifting.
The homes themselves need to do that.
The biggest problem wasn’t visual.
It was the offer.
The business had changed, but the website was still presenting it like customers were choosing from a catalogue.
So the first job was making the bespoke side impossible to miss.
That changed the structure of the whole site.
A lot of websites in this space look exactly how you’d expect a caravan website to look.
Loads of boxes, bright colours, product listings and as much information as possible squeezed onto the screen.
That wasn’t the direction I wanted for Nationwide Chalets.
The product is much closer to a custom-built home, so the website needed more space, better photography and less clutter.
This isn’t the sort of thing you can sell with clever copy alone.
People want to see the interiors, finishes, layouts and what the finished builds actually look like.
So rather than filling every section with graphics and icons, the design gives the photography room to breathe.
As more projects are completed, that work can become an even bigger part of the website.
The new site gives Nationwide Chalets a much clearer way of explaining what they actually sell now.
Instead of presenting a handful of fixed options, the website is built around the idea that every chalet can be designed around the customer.
It also gives them more room to show completed work properly as the portfolio grows.
The end result is simpler, cleaner and much closer to the direction the business has gone in.
More importantly, somebody landing on it shouldn’t come away thinking they need to pick from two standard models anymore.
Tell me about the business, what you’re trying to do and what’s getting in the way.
Website design, ecommerce and practical marketing support.
DM2, Bovis House
Victoria Road
Hartlepool
TS24 7SE